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[Exotic 'Einstein Ring' Suggests That Mysterious Dark Matter Interacts With Itself] A fresh analysis of a remarkably massive yet compact galaxy from the early universe suggests that dark matter interacts with itself. The galaxy, JWST-ER1, which formed just 3.4 billion years after the Big Bang, was first spotted last October in images snapped by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). At over 17 billion light-years from Earth, JWST-ER1g is the farthest-ever example of a perfect "Einstein ring" — an unbroken circle of light around the galaxy, a result of light rays from a distant, unseen galaxy being bent due to the space-warping mass of JWST-ER1. Despite decades of observations and heaps of circumstantial evidence, the elusive substance is yet to be directly detected. In JWST-ER1g, the discovery team determined that dark matter explains just about half the mass gap, and that "additional mass appears to be needed to explain the lensing results," according to the discovery paper, which was published last fall. In a new paper, Yu and his colleagues suggest that JWST-ER1g's unusually high density could be explained by a higher population of stars than currently thought. However, a contraction mechanism by which ordinary matter — the stuff that makes up gas and stars — "collapses and condenses" into JWST-ER1g's dark matter halo could be packing "more dark matter mass in the same volume, resulting in higher density," study lead author Demao Kong of UCR said in the same statement. The halo of dark matter, densest at the galaxy's center, is the gravitational glue that prevents spinning galaxies from flying apart. Furthermore, models incorporating a certain type of dark matter, in which its particles interact with themselves, provide "an excellent fit to the measurement of JWST-ER1," according to the new study. We don't yet know what dark matter actually is. Observational clues suggest it is a new kind of particle whose presence can only be inferred from its gravitational interactions with ordinary matter. Dark matter could be just one kind of particle or a complex variety of different types, like in normal matter, that perhaps operates in the presence of additional, hitherto unknown forces exclusive to dark matter. Physicists hope JWST can shed more light on dark matter, so to speak. The telescope's unprecedented infrared eyes peer further back in time than any other telescope, and its upcoming investigations of galaxies from the very early universe could reveal clues about dark matter particles and their behavior, said Yu. "We expect to see more surprises from JWST and learn more about dark matter soon." Source: https://lnkd.in/gXNfCmFY #galaxyaerosgh #space #spaceexploration #spacenews

How the James Webb telescope is ‘set to find strange and bizarre worlds’ After its first full calendar year of operation, astronomers are using the probe to look for life on thousands of newly discovered planets There is a distant world where quartz crystals float above a searing hot, puffy atmosphere. Vaporised sand grains, not water droplets, form the clouds that fill the sky on Wasp-107b, a planet 1,300 light years from Earth. Then there is GJ1214, the sauna planet. With a mass eight times that of Earth, it orbits its parent star at a distance that is one-seventieth of the gap between Earth and the sun and seems to be coated in a thick dense atmosphere containing vast amounts of steam. Or there are the giant, Jupiter-sized planets of the Orion Nebula which have been discovered free-floating in space, rogue worlds that appear to be unconnected to any parent star – to the bafflement of astronomers… #jameswebbspacetelescope

The James Webb Space Telescope has detected the farthest supermassive black hole yet — a space vortex so far from home, it’s in one of the first galaxies of the universe.  Black holes were little more than a theory 50 years ago — a kooky mathematical answer to a physics problem — but even astronomers at the top of their field weren’t entirely convinced they existed.  Today, not only are supermassive black holes accepted science, they’re getting their pictures taken by a collection of enormous, synced-up radio dishes on Earth. Webb, the leading infrared space observatory, is also doing its part to reveal how these mysterious behemoths form in the first place. The finding was recently published in the journal Nature and highlighted by NASA during its Black Hole Week campaign. SEE ALSO: He found a Milky Way black hole 50 years ago, and finally got to see it Tweet may have been deleted The supermassive black hole was found at the center of GN-z11, an extremely luminous galaxy that was alive when the universe was only about 430 million years old, a fraction of its current age, which is nearing 14 billion.  Black holes are some of the most inscrutable phenomena in outer space. They don’t have surfaces, like a planet or star. Instead, they have a boundary called an “event horizon,” or a point of no return. If anything swoops too close, it will fall in, never to escape the hole’s gravitational clutch. The most common kind, called a stellar black hole, is thought to be the result of an enormous star dying in a supernova explosion. The star’s material then collapses onto itself, condensing into a relatively tiny area.  The first image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope collaboration But how supermassive black holes, millions to billions of times more massive than the sun, form is even more elusive than typical stellar black holes. Many astrophysicists and cosmologists believe these invisible giants lurk at the center of virtually all galaxies. Recent Hubble Space Telescope observations have bolstered the theory that supermassive black holes begin in the dusty cores of starburst galaxies, where new stars are rapidly assembled, but scientists are still teasing it out.  Mashable Light Speed A team of scientists using Webb was able to discern that GN-z11 has a central black hole with a few pieces of evidence.  “We found extremely dense gas that is common in the vicinity of supermassive black holes accreting gas,” said Roberto Maiolino, the principal investigator at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, in a statement. “These were the first clear signatures that GN-z11 is hosting a black hole that is gobbling matter.” Tweet may have been deleted Then, the team found signs of electrically charged chemicals that are usually found near active supermassive black holes. The scientists also observed the ancient galaxy

New Post: Scientists found an enigma in deep space. The Webb telescope solved it. - https://lnkd.in/gEqwu_vM - The powerful James Webb Space Telescope has solved another cosmic mystery.Astronomers can see a type of light emitted billions of years ago from some of the earliest galaxies, yet many scientists don't think this light should be visible. That's because, at a crucial time in the universe's history — a time called "reionization," when the first stars began to glow — space was absolutely packed with gas spawned by the Big Bang (the pivotal explosion that created our universe).Such thick gas should shroud this light from the first stars and galaxies. But it doesn't. We can see light emitted from early hydrogen atoms (the smallest atom, and one of the first elements ever formed). SEE ALSO: NASA reveals its X-plane. It will fly over the U.S. at extreme speeds. "One of the most puzzling issues that previous observations presented was the detection of light from hydrogen atoms in the very early Universe, which should have been entirely blocked by the pristine neutral gas that was formed after the Big-Bang," Callum Witten, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge who led the new Webb research on this mystery, said in a statement. "Many hypotheses have previously been suggested to explain the great escape of this 'inexplicable' emission."But the Webb telescope, built with a huge mirror to detect extremely faint light and resolve extremely distant objects, has provided a compelling answer. It turns out the "inexplicable" light previously observed coming from a particular ancient galaxy isn't just coming from a single galaxy. Webb found that these emissions are actually coming from groups of galaxies — we just couldn't see them. These early galaxies were colliding and merging with one another (galaxies often collide), ultimately creating an extremely active cosmic environment. In the new research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Astronomy, researchers found that this intensive activity — galactic collisions stoking the vigorous creation of new stars — generated strong light emissions and also cleared the way for the light to escape into space.The Webb image below shows the distant galaxy EGSY8p, located a whopping 13.2 billion light-years from Earth, surrounded by two other smaller galaxies — something previous observations couldn't detect."Where Hubble was seeing only a large galaxy, Webb sees a cluster of smaller interacting galaxies, and this revelation has had a huge impact on our understanding of the unexpected hydrogen emission from some of the first galaxies," Sergio Martin-Alvarez, a researcher at Stanford University who worked on the new study, noted in a statement. The extremely distant galaxy EGSY8p flanked by two smaller galaxies. Credit: ESA Webb / NA

SPACE Webb Space Telescope spots most distant, oldest black hole collision ever This system, designated ZS7, has provided critical evidence through Webb’s unparalleled observational capabilities. In our cosmic neighborhood, astronomers have discovered supermassive black holes, much larger than the Sun, residing in many big galaxies like our Milky Way. These colossal black holes have had a significant influence on how their galaxies evolved, but the reasons behind their rapid growth remain a major focus of scientific investigation. Now, researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have made a surprising find. They’ve detected the most distant black hole merger ever seen. This finding, happening when the universe was only 740 million years old, marks the farthest detection ever of black hole merging. It’s also the earliest instance of such a phenomenon observed in space. The discovery of such huge black holes so soon after the Big Bang means they grew very quickly. Dr Hannah Ubler, the lead author from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Cosmology, highlighted the significance of these findings. “We found evidence for very dense gas with fast motions in the vicinity of the black hole, as well as hot and highly ionised gas illuminated by the energetic radiation typically produced by black holes in their accretion episodes,” Übler explained in a press release. Discovering ZS7 The JWST’s recent observations have pinpointed an ongoing merger of two galaxiesand their respective supermassive black holes, situated at a time when the Universe was just 740 million years old. This system designated ZS7, has provided critical evidence through Webb’s unparalleled observational capabilities. Astronomers can identify actively feeding black holes by studying their special spectrographic features. However, these features can’t be seen from Earth-based observatories and can only be spotted using JWST’s advanced tools for galaxies as far away as the ones in this study. Observations with JWST Ubler mentioned that Webb’s exceptional imaging precision enabled their team to spatially distinguish the two black holes. One of the black holes in the ZS7 system boasts a mass equivalent to 50 million Suns. “The mass of the other black hole is likely similar, although it is much harder to measure because this second black hole is buried in dense gas,” noted Professor Roberto Maiolino, also from the Kavli Institute. Role of merging in black hole growth These findings suggest that merging plays a crucial role in the rapid growth of black holes, even at the cosmic dawn. “Together with other Webb findings of active, massive black holes in the distant https://lnkd.in/eVxMixEg

The Alma telescope photographed the ring of fire of a distant galaxy The mysterious "ring of fire" was found in outer space thanks to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. The ring, billions of light years away, is an illusion created by the accidental alignment of two distant galaxies. The bright ring structure is a rare example of a gravitational lens, described by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity. According to this theory, the gravitational effects of a nearby galaxy bend the light from a more distant galaxy. The Alma telescope in Chile managed to photograph this effect in the highest resolution in the history of the observatory, writes the Daily Mail. The SDP.81 galaxy and the intermediate galaxy lined up so perfectly that the light from the more distant galaxy formed an almost complete circle visible from Earth. SDP.81 is an active star-forming galaxy approximately 12 billion light-years away. The galaxy discovered by the Herschel Space Observatory looked like this when the universe was only 15 percent of its current age. The lensing effect was created by a massive galaxy located at a distance of about 4 billion light years from Earth. Gravitational lensing is used in astronomy to study the very distant, very early Universe, as it gives our best telescopes an impressive increase in power. Highly detailed images from Alma will allow astronomers to collect information contained in the distorted image we see as a ring and reconstruct the true image of the distant galaxy, scientists say. The maximum resolution of the SDP.81 image was obtained by observing the relatively bright glow of cosmic dust particles in a distant galaxy. No observatory that has studied the SDP.81 galaxy has been able to obtain such detailed images of the ring structure. The information obtained with Alma should improve our understanding of galaxy formation in the early Universe. Sophisticated computer programs are used to restore the true face of lensed galaxies. If you've read the article this far please like and subscribe - it really helps the channel. Open the link to find thousands of interesting articles: https://lnkd.in/dYdAdmgE #nikolaysgeneticslessons

"More than 400 scientists are now collaborating on the next generation of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). They are taking snapshots of the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87 (M87) — which is the black hole they took that original image of five years ago — to see how it changes over time. EHT has set a goal of making the video by 2026. The movie will probably be a synopsis of scenes taken over two months. The video could give clues about a major cosmic evolution debate. It's a “chicken or the egg” question: Did black holes emerge first from the gas and dust of the early universe, and did galaxies grow around them? Or, did galaxies form first and then create these black hole behemoths at their hearts? In addition, a video could also help theoretical physicists learn by what degree time slows down if an object were to fall into a black hole."

New Post: Earliest and most distant galaxy ever observed - https://lnkd.in/gyg7ygEW Just nowJonathan Amos,Science correspondent, @BBCAmosNASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Brant Robertson et alThe distant galaxy (circled) sits next to, but far behind, another galaxyThe James Webb Space Telescope has smashed its own record for detecting the most distant known galaxy.Called JADES-GS-z14-0, the collection of stars was spied as it was a mere 290 million years after the Big Bang.Put another way - if the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, it means we're observing the galaxy when the cosmos was only 2% of its current age.Webb used its huge 6.5m-wide primary mirror and sensitive infrared instruments to make the discovery.The telescope's previous record holder was a galaxy seen at 325 million years after the Big Bang.Astronomers say the most interesting aspect of the latest observation is not so much the great distance involved - as amazing as that is - but rather the size and brightness of JADES-GS-z14-0.Webb measures the galaxy to be more than 1,600 light years across. Many of the most luminous galaxies generate the majority of their light via gas falling into a supermassive black hole. But the scale of JADES-GS-z14-0 indicates that is not the explanation in this case. Instead, the researchers believe the light is being produced by young stars."This much starlight implies that the galaxy is several hundreds of millions of times the mass of the Sun! This raises the question: how can nature make such a bright, massive, and large galaxy in less than 300 million years?" said Webb astronomers Stefano Carniani and Kevin Hainline.Dr Carniani is affiliated to Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, and Dr Hainline is from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.The $10bn James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched in 2021 as a joint endeavour of the US, European and Canadian space agencies.It was designed specifically to see farther across the cosmos - and further back in time - than any previous astronomical tool.One of its key objectives was to find the very first stars to ignite in the nascent Universe.These giant objects, perhaps many hundreds of times the mass of our Sun, were made only of hydrogen and helium.They are theorised to have burnt brilliant but brief lives, forging in their nuclear cores the heavier chemical elements known in nature today.In JADES-GS-z14-0, Webb can see a significant amount of oxygen, which tells researchers the galaxy is already quite mature."The presence of oxygen so early in the life of this galaxy is a surprise and suggests that multiple generations of very massive stars had already lived their lives before we observed the galaxy," added Drs Carniani and Hainline.The "JADES" in the object's name stands for "JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey". It is one of a number of observation programmes using the telescope to probe the first few hundred million y

Discoveries made by Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope A. key discoveries made by the Hubble Space Telescope: 1. **Age of the Universe**: Hubble helped determine the age of the universe by measuring the rate of its expansion, leading to the discovery that the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old. 2. **Dark Energy**: Hubble's observations of distant supernovae provided evidence for the existence of dark energy, a mysterious force accelerating the expansion of the universe. 3. **Exoplanet Atmospheres**: Hubble has studied the atmospheres of exoplanets, providing valuable insights into their compositions and conditions. 4. **Galaxy Formation and Evolution**: By observing distant galaxies, Hubble has contributed to our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve over time. 5. **Black Holes**: Hubble has observed the effects of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies, including the stars orbiting around them and the powerful jets of energy they produce. 6. **Stellar Evolution**: Hubble has observed various stages of stellar evolution, from the birth of stars in stellar nurseries to the explosive deaths of massive stars in supernova explosions. 7. **Gravitational Lensing**: Hubble's observations of gravitational lensing have provided evidence for the existence of dark matter and have allowed astronomers to study distant galaxies that would otherwise be too faint to see. B. Key discoveries made by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) since its launch in December 2021: 1. **Greatest science breakthrough of 2022**: The JWST was hailed as the greatest science breakthrough of 2022 by the journal Science. It helped discover thousands of new galaxies more distant and ancient than any previously documented, and revealed the atmospheric composition of planets hundreds of light-years from Earth, offering hints as to their ability to potentially support life as we know it. 2. **Stars born in the Pillars of Creation**: The JWST captured the creation happening within the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, showing numerous protostars being born. 3. **First direct image of an exoplanet**: The JWST captured its first direct image of an exoplanet, HIP 65426 b, in September 2022. 4. **First evidence of carbon dioxide on an exoplanet**: The JWST detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time in August 2022. 5. **Images of Jupiter**: The JWST captured images of Jupiter in great detail in August 2022, revealing storms and bands in the planet's atmosphere. 6. **Detected aurorae on an isolated brown dwarf**: The JWST detected signs of possible aurorae on an isolated brown dwarf, suggesting atmospheric heating by auroral processes. - #NASAWebb - #NASASocial - #HubbleSpaceTelescope - #SpaceDiscoveries - #Astronomy - #SpaceExploration - #NASA - #WebbTelescope - #HubbleImages - #SpaceScience courtesy BBC earth science Ciaran Mullan

The latest images from the Euclid space telescope are simply breathtaking! As part of ESA's mission to map the dark universe, Euclid is capturing the cosmos with unprecedented clarity and depth, helping scientists unlock the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Truly a monumental achievement in space exploration and astronomy!